Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
Just came across a lacquer guitar from years ago that’s been sitting in cased in the closet for the rest of its life. It sounds so, well, new.
Wondering if there’s a way to speed up the aging or mature its tone besides playing for hours a day and leaving it outside the case? By the windown perhaps? Indirect sun?
I’m just curious as my 15 year old guitar’s lacquer has sinked in and dried nicely and sounds really good.
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to ohjelo)
I have a lacquered guitar that sounded like a piece of crap when I first got it. It was already a few years old but was virtually unplayed. Probably because it sounded like a piece of dead wood. I didn’t play it for the longest time but finally took it from its case and left it on a stand in my living room so I could have something within easy reach. It did improve a lot. Its color also changed from an obnoxious yellow to a much more acceptable noxious yellow, so...bonus. It took over ten years to improve, however.
I guess that means the answer to your question is no.
P.S. I also have a 60 year old Gibson acoustic that’s been played a lot. It’s technically not a great sounding guitar, it never was, and I suspect it never will be. Just to provide a counter-balance to the old saw that things improve with age. It’s good for blues, though, so maybe it’s not so bad.
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
rumba rhythm
Mr. Marlow you seem to have a thing for rumba. I think rumba is responsible for misrepresentation of flamenco in the whole universe. I still believe rumba is not flamenco.
Posts: 2879
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
Mr. Marlow you seem to have a thing for rumba. I think rumba is responsible for misrepresentation of flamenco in the whole universe. I still believe rumba is not flamenco
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
ORIGINAL: devilhand
quote:
rumba rhythm
Mr. Marlow you seem to have a thing for rumba. I think rumba is responsible for misrepresentation of flamenco in the whole universe. I still believe rumba is not flamenco.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to ohjelo)
For several years I have been using the "ToneRite" to accelerate the play-in time on new guitars, or to improve the response on guitars that have been neglected or not played. It is a variable vibrating device which is attacked to the strings just in front of the bridge. The guitar should be left on a stand; the vibrations can be felt over the entire guitar up to the tip of the head stock. I have always seen improvement if the device is left on the guitar for 4-7 days round the clock, but the amount of improvement varies from guitar to guitar. I do not know if the device is still available.
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to ohjelo)
I would give a chance to Tonerite. In advance I used to be skeptical, to be honest. I though an eventual improvement would not be measurable anyway. Eventually I saw a picture of the Kohno workshop with some guitars hanging with that Tonerite and this means something. Just recently a luthier told me it helps quite effectively the guitar to open up. Other than this, I second Ricardo’s advice: constant strumming routine...
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
ORIGINAL: devilhand
quote:
rumba rhythm
Mr. Marlow you seem to have a thing for rumba. I think rumba is responsible for misrepresentation of flamenco in the whole universe. I still believe rumba is not flamenco.
When you get a Flamenco guitar I will finally be able to laugh at this.
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
When you get a Flamenco guitar I will finally be able to laugh at this.
Strange, how many people have different opinions about flamenco music, which has adopted many universal forms from different cultures world wide. There was a time when the music was free form without much concentrated timing structure.
I might add that there was a time when Paco's music was not considered real flamenco.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
quote:
I might add that there was a time when Paco's music was not considered real flamenco.
Never in this perceived universe. Yes, perhaps there was or is a group of individuals who might draw a line with regard to certain time periods of his work, in the process myopically negating the important evolutionary forks-in-the road those subjective lines identify regarding the genre as a whole...in the process revealing their personal preference to cling to the familiar road posts they know so well, misguided or not. But a “specific time when...” might be different for each individual.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
quote:
I might add that there was a time when Paco's music was not considered real flamenco.
When was there ever a time when Paco's music was not considered real flamenco? From the time he played with the Jose Greco troupe as a teenager until his untimely death, I don't recall anyone suggesting he didn't play real flamenco.
Some, and I was one, did not care for his later concerts involving bass guitar and harmonica, but neither I nor others suggested it was not flamenco. He just took flamenco in a direction I did not care for. But as far as I am aware, it was still recognized as flamenco.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to gerundino63)
quote:
ORIGINAL: gerundino63
@ Devilhand
From the book Toques flamencos by Paco Peña
As long as you believe something, you did not investigate enough. You can also use this in other matters.
I'll borrow this famous book of Paco Pena from my local library when I'm ready to play along. But I'll definitely skip that Rumba section for sure. Alfonso Eduardo described rumba as terrible at 3:59. Expressed exactly what I feel about rumba.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
Posts: 1770
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I'll borrow this famous book of Paco Pena from my local library when I'm ready to play along. But I'll definitely skip that Rumba section for sure. Alfonso Eduardo described rumba as terrible at 3:59. Expressed exactly what I feel about rumba.
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Never in this perceived universe. Yes, perhaps there was or is a group of individuals who might draw a line with regard to certain time periods of his work,
I'm referring to the more modern jazz-men-co that Paco got into later in his playing style; fast picados and more modern chord structure, which was judged by those who were more inclined to the older players. Perico del lunar, etc.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Speeding up guitar aging for bet... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
Alfonso Eduardo described rumba as terrible at 3:59. Expressed exactly what I feel about rumba.
Since you like Rito, please note the greatest cante accompanist Paco Cepero, never shied away from rumbas, even singing it himself. There was always a “fear” regarding trends that leaned toward commercially successful items. In 1922 the nerds held a competition of cante in vein. At that time it was that new fandango Naturales and the opera Flamenco stuff. Luckily, the maestros then and more recently with rumbas and such, didn’t embrace such fears and artfully enriched the genre as a whole with contributions of high art in “cante Chico”. In the end these labels of depth and purity are more superficial anyway, delivered by folks that have neither.
Printable Version
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread